Pretty, Blonde, Dead Girl
by CrackedReality
Summary: AU Futurefic. A dark look at how things could have turned out if the events of October 3rd had gone differently. Not in any way a happy, fluffy story.


**Pretty, Blonde, Dead Girl**

**Rating:** NC-17 for adult themes  
**Summary:** AU - Futurefic about what life might be like if events that October 3rd would have gone differently.  
**Spoilers:** None that I can think of but let's say the first season just to be on the safe side.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, I'm just playing with them. They belong to the brilliant Rob Thomas, UPN, et al.

_A/N: This started out as a short exercise written on another board. This is a longer, more detailed version of that exercise. This is unlike any of my other stories. It is rather dark, so if you are looking for happy & fluffy, this isn't for you._

"Where were you last night?" she asks rather timidly.

He stares at her, a silent hatred radiating from under his eyelids, a smirk tilting his mouth. "I was in meetings."

She releases the breath she was holding when she realizes that he is going to let their little charade continue. As long as he doesn't confess the truth, she can pretend she doesn't know better. But, she does know better and he knows that she knows. He revels in watching her squirm.

"All night?" she questioned, raising the glass of juice liberally mixed with vodka to her mouth.

"Yes, all night." He knows she won't call him on his lies. "You know how producers and agents are…talk, talk, and more talk."

When he walks over leans over to kiss her cheek, she can smell the cheap perfume, smoke, and booze that cling to him. She wants to scream and yell and beat on his chest; somehow make him hurt like she hurts.

He would just laugh at her if she tried. He would use the alcohol and drugs she drowns her pain in and her own affairs to take the children and kick her out. She could probably live without the money, even without her daughter, but the loss of her son would devastate her. Her little boy was the one true love in her life.

She'll never be strong enough to walk away and her husband knows it and uses it to punish her. She knows that she deserves every ounce of pain heaped upon her. It's her fault that her best friend was raped and murdered. She often wishes that she was the one who had been left lifeless by the pool that day.

Would people have mourned her loss as much? Would her best friend have been the one to substitute for a dead girl? Would she have been this pathetic or would she have found strength in adversity? She suspects the latter is true and hates her weakness even more.

As her husband leads her into her bedroom, she wonders if it is meant as a consolation or a punishment. He doesn't even bother to undress; he just drops his pants and dons a condom. She kneels on the bed, the way he likes it best, and listens to his grunts and groans as he moves in and out of her. He never looks at her face when he fucks her, never whispers words of love. She knows he never calls out her name because he is envisioning another girl with pretty, long, blonde hair.

When he is done, he zips his pants and leaves her alone without a word. She curls into a ball and sobs. Sometimes, Lilly Echolls wishes she was the pretty, blonde, dead girl.

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Lianne Mars lays sprawled across her bed, smoking a cigarette and drinking gin. Her lover left over an hour ago to return to his family. She no longer has a family waiting for her. She squarely lays the blame for that on her lover's wife.

Her baby girl had been raped and left for dead next to her best friend's pool. Her daughter's marshmallow heart and inherent belief in second chances had led her to try and help a friend out of a mess that she'd made with her boyfriend's father. Unfortunately, he chose to teach Lilly a lesson by destroying Lianne's precious girl.

Her husband was also dead. Overcome with grief and rage at their daughter's murder, he had become reckless. The official report states that one night he walked, unaware, into an armed robbery and was killed by the leader of the PCH bikers. She often wonders if he was really oblivious to what was happening or if he'd known exactly what was going to happen when he entered that convenience store. She thought the latter was more likely and wished it would happen to her.

Lianne would be the first to admit that she had been a lousy wife. Keith had deserved better than a drunken, unfaithful wife who was in love with another man. She missed him terribly. Keith represented everything she wanted back. Now that she's lost everything, she realizes that with him she'd had her dream life. She figures this life is her punishment for not knowing what she had when she had it.

Now, she was left only with a lover young enough to be her son. They did not profess to love each other. Their time together was one of pretense. She would pretend he was her husband and he would pretend that she was her daughter.

Until her death, no one had known that her lover was in love with her daughter. He professed to Lianne once that he'd fallen in love with her when she was twelve. He had been biding his time, hoping she would break up with his best friend and see his love for her. She was never given the opportunity.

Lianne Mars does little these days but smoke, drink, and fuck another woman's husband. She hopes the other woman feels a fraction of her pain. She wishes the other woman was the pretty, blonde, dead girl.

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The once beautiful, blonde, former pep squad member watched her husband leave for work. Where once stood a sweet, vivacious, young bride, there now stood a bitter, vengeful woman aging faster than she should. She had become little more than a trophy wife there to decorate her husband's arm; a mask to hide his dirty little secrets.

Meg Kane hated her husband and wished him dead. He thought she was stupid and naïve. He had no idea she knew about his porn and his whores, but she knows it all. With the help of a private investigator and a lawyer, she had enough evidence to destroy him when the time came. Substituting for a dead girl has made her vengeful.

At first she had believed his claims that he loved her, but soon she realized he only married her for her resemblance to another. One night he had confessed his reasons for breaking up with the other girl. It had been hard enough knowing he thought about someone else. Knowing the other girl was his sister made her physically ill and multiplied her rage one hundred fold.

Her lover would be over this afternoon. Every time she fucked her husband's best friend she laughed. Some days, she could hardly control the urge to tell Duncan. She wanted to punish him and his bitch of a sister.

Lilly Kane-Echolls always acted all high and mighty and treated Meg like dirt. She could barely control her glee when she imagines Lilly's reaction to the fact that her sister-in-law was fucking her husband.

It was ironic that she chose a lover who also saw her as a substitute for the dead girl. Unlike her husband, her lover was honest about his motivations and feelings. He never professed his love for her, nor did he expect her to love him. They were content to use each other; mutually getting off on the knowledge of how their actions would hurt their respective spouses.

Meg had liked the dead girl but never cared for Lilly. Everyone knew it was Lilly's fault that the other girl was murdered. She wonders if things would be different had Lilly been the one murdered. She wishes her sister-in-law was the pretty, blonde, dead girl.

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Logan steps out of his wife's room and sees her son coming out of his bedroom. He often thinks of the children as his and hers. She laid claim to their son and he happily claimed their daughter. The boy adores his mother and despises his father, much as he had done as a child.

Considering his wife's inability to keep her legs together, he had been skeptical of his role as the father. One DNA test and a look at the eyes identical to his proved him wrong. He had never laid a hand on the boy but neither had he given him the love he had a right to expect. Sometimes he would have the urge to grab the boy and pull him into a hug but then he would look at Logan in the same manner as his mother and the urge would dissipate.

As he sees his father come out of his mother's room, the little boy glares at him with as much hatred as an eight-year-old can muster. He knows that his father has been in there hurting his mother. He can hear her sobs through the closed door.

As Logan walks by, he lays a hand on his son's shoulder. "Your mother isn't feeling well so you need to leave her alone. Get ready for school and go eat breakfast. I'll be down to drive you to school later." He doesn't wait around to hear a response. He knows the boy will obey as instructed. He knows he's acting like a royal bastard but he can't bring himself to care.

In his own room, Logan strips and climbs into the shower where he thinks about the women in his life. He can only think of three females that he has ever truly loved. Two are dead as a result of his father's actions and one is a six-year-old beauty named in honor of them. His little girl is his reason for getting through each day. She is his heart and soul. If not for her, he's not sure he wouldn't try to follow the other two women into the ground.

He steps from the shower, freshly cleansed of the stench left behind by his lover and his wife. He hates them both. They are both pathetic, but then, so is he. What kind of man fucks his wife and a woman old enough to be his mother, all the while pretending they are a girl he never had the chance to love?

He thinks of the lover he will see this afternoon. For reasons he cannot explain, he doesn't hate her like he does his wife and other lover. She is perhaps the one true innocent left alive in this sordid little scenario. Her crime was nothing more than she reminded too many people of a dead girl.

He knows she has become a bitter, vengeful woman who seeks nothing more than to hurt the Kane family. As he feels the same way, he is more than happy to help her in her endeavor. They have a sick, twisted relationship that gets them both off.

Leaving his room, he walks into the room across the hall. He stares at her sleeping form for a minute, feeling the love encompass his heart. Finally, he wakes his daughter for school. As she opens her big, blue eyes and grins, he can't help but smile back.

As he hugs her tight he whispers, "I love you Veronica Lynn."

"I love you too Daddy."

He looks up to see his wife and son glaring at them. He wishes he could love the two of them half as much as he does the dead girl and her namesake. He wishes his wife was the pretty, blonde, dead girl.


End file.
